The half-hearted
approach towards stamping out the doping menace has time and
again brought shame to India in the world sporting arena, says M.S.
Unnikrishnan

Weightlifter Pratima Kumari was given life ban for testing positive for testosterone at the 2004 Olympics
— Photos by AFP/PTI

Indian
athletes have been on a "high" for quite some time and
they continue to persist with their "high-spirited
performances" due to the ham-handed attitude of the
authorities in stamping out the menace of doping.

"Everyone
else is doing and why can’t we" is the reasoning of
senior officials in the Sports Authority of India (SAI) — the
nodal agency created to foster sports in the country.

Doping in India
began as an institutionalised effort, when enterprising coaches
took over the onerous task of making their wards champions
through the doping route, and now sportspersons themselves do
the "boosting" act to tone up their performances in
international competitions. Irresistible rewards for winners and
coaches, instant fame and recognition motivate sportspersons to
resort to unfair means to win medals. This has now become almost
a contagious disease, especially in power and endurance events
like throwing, weightlifting, track and field events, boxing,
etc.

Though even the
International Cricket Council (ICC)has taken a tough
stand against doping, cricketers are unlikely to resort to
doping as a mode to success. The reason for this is that
performance-enhancing substances may not work in a highly
skilled game like cricket where concentration, endurance and
skill play a vital role in the success of a player.

Discus thrower Seema Antil, who has been charged with drug use prior to the Doha games, was caught for dope violation in the World Junior Athletics Championships in 2000

Thrower Seema
Antil getting caught for yet another dope violation may not come
as a surprise to those who have been following the career of
many a promising young athlete in the country over the years.

For, the first
time Seema was caught for a doping violation, after she won the
discus throw gold in the World Junior Athletics Championships at
Santiago (Chile) in 2000, she was just into her teens. If Seema
has tested for a banned substance yet again — though the test
result emanates from the so-called lab of the Sports Authority
of India in Delhi, which does not have an IOC (International
Olympic Committee) accreditation, and hence cannot be validated
— the fault lies elsewhere.

To the credit of
the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), it had anticipated the
spectre of doping dogging the Indian contingent in the 15th
Asian Games in Doha well before the squad was announced, and had
kept out those suspected of taking the banned substances from
the Asian Games squad. But when doping is an
"institutionalised effort", as the motto seems to be
to win medals at any cost, then it is pointless to put the
entire blame on poor girls like Seema Antil, who could be just
pawns in the hands of ambitious sports officials, coaches and
even mandarins in the Ministry of Sports, despite their
protestations of innocence.

An enhanced medal
tally in Asian Games or Commonwealth Games is to the benefit of
all, and hence a cover-up act if an athlete is caught for a
doping violation, serves the purpose of everyone. When Chinese
middle-distance runner Sun Sumei was tested positive for
anabolic steroid testosterone after she won the 800m gold in the
Asian Track and Field (ATF) meet at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium
in New Delhi in 1987, it was a new experience for Indian
sportspersons.

Sumei’s urine
sample was tested at the IOC-accredited laboratory in Tokyo
(Japan) in which her A and B samples were found to have traces
of testosterone. (Anabolic agents are synthetic chemicals
designed to have effects similar to a natural steroid produced
in the body — the hormone testosterone. Natural testosterone
provides anabolic (building) and androgenic (masculinising)
effect. Sportspersons misuse this drug to increase muscle
strength and bulk, and to promote aggressiveness and increased
athletic performance).

Edwin Raju: Banned after stanozolol was found in urine sample in 2006 Commonwealth Games, Melbourne

Sumei was stripped
off her gold, and India’s Shiny Abraham, who had finished
second behind the Chinese girl, was promoted to the gold. The
sudden windfall also made Shiny richer by Rs 1 lakh — the
Government reward for winning the gold. Though the western media
took up Sumei’s doping violation to highlight the cheating
done by the Chinese athletes behind the iron curtain, the news
was somewhat hushed up as China were to host their first-ever
Asian Games in Beijing in 1990.

But the Sumei
episode gave an idea to Indian sports administrators about the
wayward ways of doping benefits, and their ideas took concrete
shape when the break-up of the Soviet Union threw up many
jobless coaches who were only too keen to pass on their
"expertise" to Indian sports administrators about the
shortcut to success.

The first cases of
Indian sportspersons testing positive for banned substances
emanated from the Commonwealth Games in Auckland (New Zealand) a
couple of years after the ATF meet in Delhi. Ever since, there
have been instances of Indian sportspersons getting caught in
the dope trail, though such incidents assumed alarming
proportions only for the past five years.

Fifteen Indian
sportspersons have tested positive for dope since 2000,
following tests conducted by international bodies, and
weightlifters head the list with 10 offenders.

Thirteen times
national women’s badminton champion Aparna Popat was the first
to be officially named for a doping violation. Aparna was tested
positive for the banned drug D’cold total-phenyl propalamine
during the Uber Cup Championship in March, 2000, in New Delhi.
She was slapped a six-month ban by the International Badminton
Federation (IBF), but rescinded the ban after three months when
the IBF got convinced that she had committed an inadvertent
mistake when she took the drug to contain a severe cold.

Her ban was
rescinded after three months to enable her to participate in the
2000 Sydney Olympic Games in Australia.

Seema was the next
when she tested positive for a stimulant after winning the
discus throw gold in the Junior World Athletic Championship at
Shantiago (Chile) in July 2000. She had claimed that she took a
stimulant to contain cough and cold. She was stripped off her
medal and was "warned" by the International Amateur
Athletic Federation.

But weightlifter
Kunjarani Devi was the first to be heavily penalised for serious
doping violation after the world champion tested positive for
stimulant strychnine during the Asian Weightlifting Championship
in Korea, in July 2001. She was slapped a six-month ban and
fined $1000 by the Asian Weightlifting Federation. Shot putter
Bahadur Singh was tested for a stimulant during the Asian
Athletics Grand Prix at Bangkok on May 21, 2002, and got away
with a warning from the International Amateur Athletic
Federation (Bahadur Singh went on to win the Asian Games gold a
few months later at Busan, though his victory was yet again
clouded by a doping allegation).

Weightlifter
Sateesha Rai was tested for a stimulant during the Commonwealth
Games-2002 at Manchester (UK) in July 2002 and was slapped a
six-month ban and fined $1000 by the International Weightlifting
Federation and the Commonwealth Games Federation. Another
lifter, K Madasamy, who was tested for anabolic steroid
nandrolone was, however, given a two-year ban and fined $1000.

Judoka Aruna was
tested for diuretics during the KRA Cup Korean Open
International Tournament in December 5-8, 2003, and was banished
for two years. Sunaina tested for 19-nor-androsterone and
19-nor-ethiocoloanolone at the Asian Weightlifting Championship
at Almaty in April (5 to 12), 2004, and was banned for two
years.

Pratima Kumari
tested positive for testosterone and Sanamacha Chanu for
diuretics furosemide at the 28th Olympic Games in Athens in
August 2004 and were imposed life bans; discus thrower Neelam J
Singh tested for stimulant pemoline at the World Athletics
Championship in Helsinki in August 2005, and was given a
provisional two-year ban; WADA (World Anti-Doping Agency)
sleuths caught weightlifter Shailaja during the national
coaching camp at NIS, Patiala, in February this year and banned
her for two years with a fine of $2000; Weightlifters Tejinder
Singh and Edwin Raju tested positive for stanozolol during the
18th Commonwealth Games in Melbourne. They were fined
$ 2000 and banned for two years each. Weightlifter B Pramila
Valli was caught cheating during the national coaching camp at
Patiala in February this year by WADA officials. She was fined
$2000 and banned for two years.

Besides this, the
SAI is learnt to have compiled a list of 280-odd sportspersons
who have tested positive for various banned substances over a
period of time in various domestic competitions and coaching
camps, though the list has not been officially made public in
the absence of any legal sanctity to the lab.

"Doping among
Indian sportspersons is very rampant, and this trend has caught
on as the sportspersons are looking for instant fame, money and
status," observed a senior SAI official.

"Doping has
become an international phenomenon and while the advanced
countries go scot-free as they have mastered the masking
techniques, our athletes get caught in the drug dragnet because
we are yet to perfect the masking job," said another SAI
top brass.

The doping method
has become so entrenched that now the urine sample of an athlete
is tested and the result kept for ready reference even before
the athlete in question competes in an international event. For
example, the traces of a steroid like nandrolone lasts in an
athlete’s system for around 40 days, and the urine sample is
collected before the athlete goes on to the nandrolone course
and despatched to the destination of his next international
competition venue where the agents get the sample tested and
keep it ready.And even if the athlete’s urine sample
is collected and tested after winning a medal, say at Doha, the
test result would be based on the old sample, and not on the new
one.

Indian Olympic
Association (IOA) president Suresh Kalmadi had openly declared
during the 2002 National Games in Hyderabad that the scourge of
doping would be banished from the Indian sports map for all
times to come. Some strict measures were taken to catch the
oping offenders at Hyderabad. And for the first time in India,
dope testing was done during the inaugural Afro-Asian Games in
Hyderabad in November 2003, in collaboration with the
IOC-accredited lab in Tokyo, after getting temporary
accreditation from the IOC.

But ironically,
Kalmadi, as president of the Athletics Federation of India
(AFI), could do little to prevent the athletes from indulging in
doping violations and quit in disgust in February this year. He
had tried his best to lift the standard of athletics in the
country during his 12-year reign as the president of the
athletics body, but he could not take it no more when the
athletes continued to violate the doping code. Kalmadi was
particularly incensed and embarrassed as he was the first to
become the president of the Asian Athletics Association and was
also chairman of the 2010 Commonwealth Games organising
committee.

The SAI has the
Doping Control Centre (DCC) at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in
New Delhi, which has got ISO 9001 and ISO 17025, prerequisites
for getting WADA accreditation. But the DCC is quite some
distance away from getting the IOC nod, though the lab should be
in place before the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Presently, the DCC
makes preventive tests on Indian probables for international
competitions so that the country is not embarrassed in front of
an international audience.

In any case, there
are only 30 IOC-accredited dope testing labs for 196 countries,
and it is no shame that India does not have one. But now that
India is a signatory to WADA and remits a substantial sum as
membership fee to the agency, the country must have one sooner
or later. More importantly, sports federations, administrators
and coaches should be made aware of the 190-odd prohibited
substances notified in the WADA list, to weed out the scourge of
doping in the country, unless of course, it is an
institutionalised process, as elsewhere in the world.